which we regard as far less improbable than Captain Grover seems to imagine. But if that character did not cease in the case of failure, then the honour of the nation would be obviously committed to the prosecution of a war in Central Asia, with a country to which British troops had no means of access. The original proclamation of England's intention to punish the Ameer of Bokhara, would in fact, previous to the march of the expedition, pledge the country to the prosecution of the war, if the first expedition should be unsuccessful.

How is such a war to be carried on? Captain Grover puts the employment of a British force out of the question. That it must be put out of the question is obvious; for there is no route open to it by which it could arrive at any part of the kingdom of Bokhara. If a Persian force should be marched against Bokhara, is it not almost certain that the other Uzbec states of Khiva and Kokand would aid in repelling an invasion, the success of which would immediately threaten their own independence, and almost certainly lead to the invasion of Khiva? Having engaged Persia in a war with the Uzbec states for our purposes, how could we prevent her from prosecuting it for her own? Are we to engage as allies in a war in Central Asia, in which we can take no part, the results of which, even if successful, we cannot possibly foresee, and over the operations of which we can exercise no efficient control?

Captain Grover says, the expedition should be directed against the Ameer alone, our policy requiring that Bokhara should be strengthened rather than weakened;' and this he proposes to accomplish by letting a Persian army loose upon the country, without any means of controlling its proceedings, or any security that it would limit its operations to the accomplishment of his objects!

He seems to expect that the people of Bokhara, on the approach of a Persian force, may rise in rebellion against their sovereign, and depose him. Does he not know that the slaves he proposes to liberate constitute the most fertile source of the wealth of the country; and that the whole Uzbec population would therefore, in all probability, unite as one man to defend their most valuable property; and that Khiva would, from the same cause, have a common interest with Bokhara in resisting an army invading the country for such a purpose. Does he not know the bitter feelings of religious animosity that exist between the Soony populations of all those countries and the Sheah population of Persia ? That the war would, therefore, assume the character of a religious war, in which we should be taking part

with the Sheahs of Persia against the great body of Mahommedans all over Asia?

These are, perhaps, considerations too trifling to disturb the speculations of a man like Captain Grover. It would be easy to point out many other, and even more serious practical objections to his scheme; but, if we mistake not, Captain Grover is not of a frame of mind that leads him, or perhaps enables him, to take a practical view of any question.

We have already occupied more than our allotted space, and cannot now enter upon an examination of the Captain's correspondence with the Foreign Office about the bill drawn upon him by Dr Wolff; in which there appears to us to be nothing so prominent as his desire to be made a martyr to the extent of L.400 -and, like other angry martyrs, to let the world know it. We may except, perhaps, the extreme bad taste of some of his Letters.

We cannot help thinking, however, that Lord Aberdeen has brought upon himself much of this annoyance. It is most desirable, no doubt, that the high officers of state should be courteous in their demeanour-slow to take offence, and ready to make every reasonable allowance for personal mortification, or the influence of irritating causes on the minds of those with whom they may have to deal. But when Captain Grover, in his Letter of the 25th February 1845, had said, if your Lordship had done 'your duty, those brave and faithful envoys would not have 'been allowed to linger during those years in captivity '—his Lordship, in seeking an interview with Captain Grover, for the purpose, as it seems, of explaining his conduct, surely carried his good-nature to a point which put in peril the dignity of his official station; and could not fail, as he might have foreseen, to produce amongst men of the class he was trying to conciliate, a misapprehension of the motives by which he was actuated in seeking that interview.

ART. V. Recit de la Cérémonie de l'Inauguration de la Fontaine Molière. 15 Janvier 1844. 8vo. Paris: 1844.

N the month of February 1839, the Journal des Débats an

Inounced the intended construction of a Fountain at the corner

of the Rue de Richelieu and the Rue Traversière. An Actor of the Théâtre Français, Monsieur Régnier, upon this occasion addressed a letter to the Prefect of the Seine, pointing out to him that the proposed edifice would occupy the space immediately opposite to the house in which Molière died; and that nothing would be easier than to combine the projected Fountain with a Monument to the great dramatic poet. The proposition of Monsieur Régnier was taken into consideration; a short time after it was decided that it should be adopted, and a subscription was accordingly opened for the purpose. Thus, Molière owes this tardy tribute to his genius, neither to the gratitude nor even to the vanity of the French nation at large, but to the casual suggestion of an unknown individual-a Comedian-not impossibly a descendant of one of those, to the furtherance of whose interests the author of Tartuffe so entirely devoted himself.*

On the 15th of January 1844, the inauguration of the monument took place. At twelve o'clock Monsieur de Rambuteau, the Prefect of the Seine; the municipal corps; several deputies; the different academies of the Institute; the associates of the Théâtre Français; the commission for the monument; a deputation from the committee of dramatic authors; a deputation from the society of dramatic artists; with all the other functionaries who had been invited, left the Théâtre Français, and proceeded to the spot appointed for the ceremony. A battalion of the second Legion of the National Guard, with its band playing, led the procession. Close to, and facing the monument, had been raised a circular platform, decorated with various banners and inscriptions. On this the Prefect of the Seine, the Presidents of the Academies, and of the Commission for the monument, and one of the associates of the Théâtre Français, took their places. Appropriate speeches were delivered upon the occasion by Monsieur de Rambuteau, by Monsieur Etienne in the name of the Académie Française, by Monsieur Samson in that of the Comédie

*In the beginning of his dramatic career, Molière, at Montpélier, refused the Prince de Conti's offer of making him his private secretary, on the ground that he could not abandon his troop of actors without exposing them to serious losses.

Française, and by Monsieur Arago in that of the Commission for the monument. The Prefect of the Seine afterwards deposited in the base of the monument a box, containing a medal struck in honour of Molière; an account of the ceremony; a copy of his works in one volume, and a memoir of his life. Monsieur de Rambuteau presented a crown of laurel, which was placed on the head of the statue. Each of the literary corps present on the occasion, hung upon the monument a votive wreath. The procession then returned to the Théâtre Français in the same order in which it had advanced, accompanied by the loud cheerings of the multitude.

As to the monument itself, it is of a noble simplicity-the work of an ingenious architect, Monsieur Visconti, to whom Paris already owed many elegant structures. It clearly, and at once, discloses its double purpose of monument and fountain; nor does the useful part detract from or seem unfitting to the ornamental.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born in Paris, on the 15th of January 1622, in a house in the Rue St Honoré, at the corner of the Rue des Vieilles Etuves. Both by father and mother he was descended from a race of upholsterers. His father, besides his trade, held the appointment of valet-de-chambre-tapissier to the King of France, and destined his son to the inheritance of his place. The boy, from an early age brought up in the shop as an apprentice, knew little more at fourteen than how to write, read, and cast accounts, with other merely elementary branches of his purposed profession. His grandfather, however, whose favourite haunt was the theatre, seems first to have applied the match to the ready combustibles of his imagination, by taking him frequently to witness the performances at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Each time he returned home after these excursions, the youth was sadder, more absent in manner, less inclined to work in the shop, and more averse from the prospects held out to him by a continuance in his father's trade. At last, unable to bear his position any longer, he applied to his father, and, supported by his fond grandfather, obtained permission to devote himself to studies more suited to his tastes. At school, at the College of Clermont, (now that of Louis le Grand,) superintended by the Jesuits, he in five years passed through all the regular studies, including rhetoric and philosophy; and moreover formed several connexions which, later in life, had a strong influence over his opinions and his fortunes. The Prince de Conti, brother of the great Condé, never (even after he turned Jansenist, and wrote against the drama) forgot that Molière had been his schoolfellow. Chapelle, his great friend, procured for

him lessons from his preceptor, the philosopher Gassendi; of which traces may be discovered in many pages of Molière, and particularly in the Femmes Savantes. His conferences with Gassendi inspired the desire to translate Lucretius. He did so, partly in verse, partly in prose; but this translation has shared the fate of many of his early productions, the manuscript having been lost. Cyrano de Bergerac, Bernier the traveller, and the poet Hesnault, the satirist of Colbert, were amongst his other school intimates.

On leaving college at nineteen, young Poquelin was forced by circumstances to take his father's place, in his office of valet-dechambre-tapissier to the King; and, much against his wishes, he followed Louis XIII. to Narbonne in 1641. It would appear

that from that time he ceased to exercise functions so ill suited to him; and went to Orleans, where he studied the law, and was admitted to the bar. But his old passion for the theatre soon again seized upon him; for, in 1645, we find him returned to Paris, and at last placed at the head of a troop of actors, whom he soon formed into a regular and permanent company. The two brothers Béjart, their sister Madeleine, Duparc, nicknamed Gros-René, and Mademoiselle Duparc, were all members of this corps, which styled itself L'Illustre Théâtre.

From this moment Poquelin abandoned his paternal name, and, for some reason not fully known, took that of Molière. First he tried his fortune in the different quarters of Paris; then in provincial towns. It is said that at Bordeaux he tried a piece called La Thébaïde, which was of a serious nature, and failed. But of his farces and comedies we have names enough, and, alas! only names. The Médecin Volant, the Jalousie du Barbouillé, the Docteurs Rivaux, the Maître d'Ecole, the Docteur Amoureux, all prove that, during this period, his pen was not idle. The Prince de Conti was the first to patronise the new manager and his troop. He sent for him several times to give representations at his palace, and shortly after commanded his attendance in Languedoc. This is the same company which, at a later period, was authorized by Philip of Orleans, the bro-ther of Louis XIV., to take the title of Troupe de Monsieur. With this company Molière visited, during some years, various cities of France-Narbonne, Pézénas, Béziers; was honourably received at Bordeaux by the Duc d'Epernon, and every where by the Prince de Conti. At length, in the year 1653, (being in his thirty-first year,) he produced at Lyons his comedy of the Etourdi, the earliest of his pieces which remain to us. From Lyons the company proceeded to Avig non; from thence to Narbonne; and afterwards, by desire of